Did the climber this morning. Felt pretty good. I did not do it at the higher level this time. I may try to step it up for the second half of tommorrow. I need to try and get to that level on a regular basis eventually.

I barbecued another brisket this weekend. It came out fantastic! I even made my own bbq sauce to serve with it. It only took four hours and was worth every second of it. I originally thought that it would take closer to 5 hours but 4 seemed to do the trick. Here is a tasty pic to show you all what you missed:

I have really seemed to catch some sort of bbq bug. A couple weeks ago I watched what seemed like a bbq contest marathon on Food Network. On one of them they described what makes something authentic bbq and the cooking process,as well as what the difference is between "grilling" and "barbecue" is. I thought to myself "I can do that!" so I did.

Our grill is actually pretty well set up for this type of cooking. It came with two metal baskets that you can use to cook with indirect heat. The main grate also has sides that flip up so that you can add coals to the basket as needed. I used one of them and got about 10 coals really good and hot. I soaked some hicory and apple wood chips for about 30 minutes. Once the coals had ashed over I dropped a small bunch of chips on the coals and added one or two new briquettes, put the meat on the grill, slapped the lid on and started the wait. About every half hour I would add more wood and few more briquettes. This "hot smokes" the meat and gives it a great flavor. The cooking temp for the majority of the process was between 200° and 250°. The final temp of the meat was 160°

Overall yesterday was a very good day! Yesterday mornign Bean wanted waffles for breakfast. So we went down stairs and made some cornmeal waffles. It was a spur of the moment decision to make those rather than normal waffles but was definietly worth it. Cecilia measured out all the ingredients and helped me mix everything together. When the first one was done we both took a taste as a test of our work. She declared the recipe a success and we finished cooking the batch. It was a lot of fun.

For those wondering what a cornmeal waffle tastes like think of sweet cornbread made with some maple syrup in the batter. Only a little lighter and fluffier like a waffle. I think these are my new standard waffle. Especially if I have my sous chef there to help me. Owen is just about able to help with the process as well! I can imagine some great breakfasts to come! I just need to get them started on omelets next.

Of course all this food is probably why the scale tipped to 207 for a second this morning before settling at 206.8. Definitely worth it though.